All true. In the Republican campaign of 1980 GHW Bush called the trickle down theory, which at the time had been relabeled Supply Side economics, Voodoo economics. Bush was right. But by the end of Reagan's term, Trickle Down was the official policy of the Republican party. Most of America's federal debt stems from that. The tax cuts themselves probably only account for 40-50% of the total debt accumulated since 1981. However Reagan increased spending a great deal as well. Now to be fair, Reagan then raised taxes 7 years in a row, but not by enough. Reagan was always working with a fraudulent budget because he was too incompetent of an executive to fire people who gave him false information year after year. Eventually the spending increases and the tax shortfalls led the following 2 presidents to have to raise taxes repeatedly, as well as push some real fiscal discipline, in order to stop the annual deficits. Something GW Bush reversed within a month of taking office.
He also cut welfare drastically. Reagan claimed that he wanted to trim government by cutting weak claims, not claims by weak people. Once in office that was abandoned, and Reagan became the president of special interests at the expense of the poor. Any weak claim could get money. Any weak person was on their own.
Deregulation of finance, particularly the savings and loan industry, cost the government in bailouts some $88billion and in the long run helped set the stage for financial crisis of 2008. It was a huge loss to everyone except those robbers in the banks and Wall St.
In short, as I said early in the thread, the nation as a whole is materially poorer, and most people of the country for generations to come will be materially poorer, because Reagan was president.
